Thursday 28 October 2010 07.12 EDT
First published on Thursday 28 October 2010 07.12 EDT

So, farewell, then, to the Ageing Bull. The announcement of Phil Vickery's retirement is a relief in some ways. When you have taken as much of a pounding as he has for club and country down the years, you do not want it to end on a stretcher, strapped into a dreaded neck brace. Having fought his way back from three serious back operations it is a wonder Vickery endured at the top level as long as he did.

Only three weeks ago, characteristically, he was still talking about one last World Cup campaign, indomitable to the last. "I didn't want lots of tributes in the book because I don't consider my career to be over. I'll always want to play for England," he told the Guardian in an interview coinciding with the launch of his autobiography. Let no one ever claim that Vickery's spirit was lacking.

Nor will many prop forwards will be remembered with as much affection as the "Vickster". Whether playing for Bude, Redruth, Gloucester, London Wasps, England or the Lions, his attitude was essentially the same: down to earth, loyal, a man to have alongside you in any trench. The farmer's son graduated years ago from the university of life and has long had a PhD in commonsense.

He also represented a dying breed, if not an extinct one. At 13 he was playing Colts rugby, at 18 he was smoking roll-ups, milking cows and playing Newbridge or Dunvant on a wet Wednesday night for Redruth. He still remembers how disappointed he felt when Liskeard beat Bude in the quarter-final of the Cornish county cup. "The only thing that has kept me going is that I love the game," he told me earlier this month. England never had a prouder, more patriotic captain.

Underneath it all, he worried more than he let on but his team-mates will still vouch for his companionship and sense of fun. At heart he has always seen himself as a simple Cornish lad who thought Gloucester was a big city. It took him years, after being told that the letters "GL" on a bottle of cider stood for "Gloucester lager", to realise it was a wind-up. He probably still thinks artifice is a poncy men's aftershave. When it comes to teaching younger players about the realities of their chosen trade, however, there is no one better. The Rugby Football Union should snap him up immediately and send him round to talk to their age-group sides. "If we were sensible we'd go and get a proper job," he frequently told us. "I'd advise young players to soak it all up but also to talk to people, to make friends, to network. My first club contract was £6,000 … I was playing for England on £12,000. Yes, I've earned some good money since but, if you're unlucky, it's a very short career."

So, if you are looking for a epitaph for the bravest of rugby men, forget the World Cup triumph of 2003, the fluctuating Lions experiences and the long hours, both at the front-row coalface and on the operating table. Salute, instead, a never-say-die sportsman who still has a Chinese tattoo on his shoulder with the inscription: "I'll fight you to the death." At times he could be quite the philosopher: "All you can ever do is try and be your best. Success is not always about being promoted or being in the Premiership. For some clubs it might be about how many boys and girls you've got doing mini-rugby on a Sunday. I've never tried to be something I'm not. You are what you are." Enjoy your peaceful weekends, Vicks. You've earned them.